Lead Contamination of Gun-Shot Deer

[paulvallandigham]

There is plenty of credible literature debunking these claims of lead pollution and lead poisoning from Gun clubs. Working with lead, however, does pose hazards, and requires care in cleaning.

A good client and friend was a firearms instructor at our local police academy, and he was found to have elevated lead levels in his blood when the University had all the staff tested. He was pulled off the range, put in a classroom, and asked by his director to learn about computers. He is now a nationally recognized leader is distant learning and Computer Based Training. It only took about a year for his lead levels to drop back to normal, but he never spent time on the range again as an instructor. Others replaced him, and some changes were made in the range design to get rid of the lead in the smoke from the muzzles of the revolvers and pistols being fired there. The benches, tables and walls were cleaned daily as well as the floor to get lead dust off everything. All this reduced the concern over lead toxicity to a minor footnote. The staff still go through a annual health checkup, and blood samples are tested for lead levels, but no one has been removed from working on the range because of high lead levels.

If anything MORE ammo is now being shot on the range today than it was back when Roy was a firearms instructor, partly because the students are armed with Semi-autos, vs. Revolvers, and because more ammo is allotted per student to get them to qualify because most new officers have never fired a gun of any kind in their lives before attending the academy! YOu would expect, therefore, more and higher lead levels, but that has not proven to be the case.

The City of Chicago closed down the Chicago Gun Club, on N. Lake Shore Drive, because Mayor Daley decided it was inconsistent public policy to operate a public shooting range, while trying to ban the private possession of firearms. He claimed, however, that the lead shot was " Polluting " the waters of Lake Michigan. Test results, reported many weeks AFTER he closed the club showed that while lead was found in the normal drop zone for shotgun pellets, on the bottom of the lake, the pellets were quickly coated with a calcium/lead oxide, and there was No measureable lead toxicity in the water due to the gun club.

In fact, the parking lot, where cardboard boxes from the Clay targets, along with broken clay targets proved to be far more toxic, because of the presense of certain hydrocarbon byproducts from the making of the clay targets, and the fact that for years, the waste was placed in burn barrels in the lot, and burned, letting the residuces leech out into the soils of the parking lot.

More recently, the ISRA and members of the local Naperville gun club caved in and allowed the city to ban lead shot in the city park owned skeet and trap club, even when there was no evidence that the lead was causing a problem for anyone. They just didn't want to win the fight, for fear their enemies might get enough votes on the city council to close the club altogether. Why they were not planning to run their own pro-gun candidates for these jobs, and get rid of the anti-gunners never dawned on them, apparently. :cursing:

There is plenty of documented research supporting the use of lead bullets, and shot for hunting, with a minimal impact on the lands and waters.

There are companies that will come out and actually MINE your club dropzone and pay you a percentage of the profit from the lead that is removed. Their machines dig up the top few inches of soil, remove the lead, and deposit the cleaned soil behind the machine, so that the ground can be restored to its prior use. The companies even put out grass seed, and pack the soil to help grass re-grow there again.

 

[Little Wattsy]

10 gauge,

First of all, I do not believe we should not try to fight this issue. But it does make sense to do a broad-based survey of calibers, firearm types and projectiles to see if there really are problems if so where they lie. These issues can then be addressed within our own industry instead of through legislation. Lets say for arguments sake that the really big issues pop up with the ultra mag high velocity guns like the 7 mag and up. If that's the case then what if all people who wanted a 450 yard gun had to go to x-bullets. Most of them shoot them at big game anyway. My point is that if given the option of self regulation or burying my head in the sand until the lawyers and politicians get after it, I'll take the former any time.

I am not a fan of the slippery slope argument. The other side uses it against us because they know we will stand up to defend things that 98% of the world sees as objectionable. When that happens they win no matter what we think. If given the choice to fight on the slope we need to try to move the fight to level ground. We are much better off being knowledgeable about the effects of the guns we shoot and trying to minimize them than allowing this to go to the courts over a question of whether the EPA should regulate this issue. Trust me, even though Paul might say that lead tastes like maple syrup and makes you smart, the toxicological literature on lead is voluminous and will be hard to fight if it comes down to that.

Respectfully,

Sean

Complete and utter :bull: !!!!!
Only a moron goes at an issue stating that there "might be" a problem when there plainly is NOT. Like the door-knob McCain catering to "global warming" when it is quite obviously a hoax.
IF you and others are soooooooo concerned with the slight no non-existant possibility that lead ingestion is an isuue anywhere on the globe then YOU should FIRST outlaw gold! Its heavier and softer the lead OBVIOUSLY a much larger threat to all the little babies being fed by thier mothers hand wearing.......soft....hard....metals OH NO!!!!

Here is an idea for those concerned with lead ingestion why dont YOU start stuffing rocks down YOUR barrels and leave me and MY lead ingestion alone. And IF....we start to run outta cougars and wolves due to lead ingestion well then GOOD! more deer for me. :blah:

 

Greenmtn,

There are a couple of issues concerning lead contamination from rifle shots on game. The potential for lead contamination in game meat for human consumption is a larger health issue, but in all reality it is of much less concern on the regulation and legislation front in the short run. The percentage of people who consume game meat in this country is really too low to make a huge issue out of it.

The second issue is fact that eagles and condors are showing up with high lead levels from scavenging carcasses. You might think who cares about that, but there are a few pieces of legislation already in place that can and are being used to limit lead use based on that issue. California has already implemented lead bans based on the Endangered Species Act for the Condor, but there is also a lead ban in the works for the area around the National Elk Range in Wyoming based on the Eagle Act. One of the papers recently published in a wildlife management journal has shown very high lead levels in eagles around that refuge and in the elk and deer carcasses they are feeding on.

I do not necessarily think this latter issue will be applied nationwide any time soon, but it could potentially affect large areas of the west. The mountain range that I just moved down out of has a wintering population of bald eagles that feeds primarily on game carcasses and gut piles in the winter. Areas like that could be at risk for a lead projectile ban.

Sean

 

[10 gauge]

Years ago "they" told us that oil came from the dead dinosaurs, then "they" told us that the oxgyen that we all breath came from plants, "THE RAIN FOREST". All were lies.
Remember men, "figures lie and liars figure".

 

Uncle.... :slap:

Sean

 

[paulvallandigham]

That's odd. Everything I know about, and have read about BALD eagles is that they a fishers- birds of prey who eat fish- not carion.

Its golden eagles that eat meat. We have major Bald Eagle Preserves here in Illinois, over near the Quad Cities on the Mississippi, and again South of Indianapolis, Indiana. The maturing birds fly from one area to the other seeking mates. They fly at night, mostly, following rivers, so they can both guide by them, and feed from them. The occasionally are spotted at early dawn as they are seeking a tall tree to spend the day sleeping in, on their way through Central Illinois.

I would be very suspect of any "study " put out by any of our government agencies, that claims to support a belief that higher lead levels in Eagles, or Condors, comes from Animals that were shot by hunters. First, there just are not that many hunters , and second, not all hunters are lousy hunters, failing to retrieve the game they shoot. There just are NOT enough wounded animals that wander off and die, in these areas, with a bit of lead in their flesh, so as to raise the lead levels of these predators.


Also be very cautious to check on what "standard " the study is using to raise an alarm. The " standards for lead Toxicity" tend to float from one study to another, but rarely are the same. There is little agreement on what levels of lead in the blood are dangerous to the birds in issue, among biologists. As you should expect, groups who want to restrict firearms, push scientists to use the lowest possible standards in measuring lead levels to raise an " Alarm" and call for restrictive rule and laws. Only when you do broad studies of different populations in different locations will you often find out that the source of lead in a particular group of animals is not caused by humans, and hunting at all!

Finally, always ask the scientists to author such papers if they are hunters. Its really easy to throw someone else's bath water out the window, but a lot harder to throw out your own. This is a major problem in the cultural war going on between Urban cultures, and traditional rural America. We saw that play out in Maryland, when the three western counties in the panhandle wanted to open a black bear season to cut down on the population of Black Bears that was so large they were coming into backyards while people were present. The good citizens of Baltimore, however, were fed the Bambi story , and voted against opening a season for bear hunting, defeating the measure. Its one reason that matters of technical and scientific analysis should never be left to a majority vote of the population, in a referendum.

I am reading of the complaints about the rapid increase of Wolves in this country, and their rapid impact on deer and Elk populations. Nothing will be done until the wolves start coming into the suburbs and killing cats and dogs. They will, just as the Mountain lions are showing up in the suburbs in California, and killing dogs, cats, and an occasional jogger. A few years, a Photographer took a picture of a coyote wandering on Oak Street Beach, on the north side of Chicago's Loop. Deer were pictured there on another occasion. The citizens were pannicked by the sight of a coyote in their city. Give it time, and the pendulum will swing back. Or speak out now, and prevent a lot of harm and sorrow over needless deaths of family pets, and injuries to people.

 

[roundball]

We were also told that DDT was killing Eagles and it was banned for decades...not long ago I heard on some news or documentary show that its been decided DDT wasn't causing that after all

 

[pmwest]

This is what we are up against (note the date):

HSUS Calls For Ban on Ammunition

Friday, November 14, 2008

The extremist animal “rights” group, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), is back to its old tricks. Earlier this week, the vehemently anti-hunting and anti-gun group once again called for a nationwide ban on lead ammunition, saying that studies by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the North Dakota Department of Health prove that game shot with lead ammunition poses a health threat to those who consume it.

In a HSUS press release, Andrew Page, senior director of the Wildlife Abuse Campaign for HSUS said, “Extremist hunters have long contaminated watersheds and habitat, dooming animals to slow and painful deaths. Now that hunters know their actions are directly putting themselves and other people at risk, there are no more excuses to use the ammo that just keeps on killing.”

The typically hysterical rhetoric from HSUS has an all too familiar political ring to it: Alarm the public with fear tactics, label hunters as “extremist,” and push for radical, ill-advised, agenda-driven “solutions.” Their real agenda is actually very transparent: They are against hunting and want to make hunting more difficult and more expensive, with the end goal of eliminating it altogether, by any means possible.

In contrast to this rhetoric, the CDC study should actually dispel fears because it shows that consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition poses no serious health risk.

The study, based on tests of lead levels in the blood of 736 North Dakota residents, found that not one of the study participants had a lead level that might require medical treatment.

In fact, study participants overall had lower levels of lead in the blood than the United States population in general, despite above-average consumption of wild game. Of the study participants, 80.8 percent reported eating wild game, and 98.8 percent of those reported they had harvested the game themselves, or that friends or family members had taken it. Most had regularly eaten significant amounts of game meat year round for 10 years or more.

The study was requested by the North Dakota Department of Health after a local doctor reported finding lead fragments in packets of ground venison donated to food pantries. The doctor found the fragments through X-ray analysis. Unfortunately, he was later discovered to have ties to a group that has supported broader bans on hunting with lead ammunition. His findings, unfortunately, led to the premature disposal of thousands of pounds of donated venison that could have been used to feed hungry North Dakotans.

Though the study proved that eating wild game doesn’t dangerously elevate blood lead levels, hunters and shooters should, of course, follow basic lead hygiene practices as taught in NRA basic firearm training programs. Washing hands, faces, and clothing after shooting or reloading ammunition, and cleaning bullet fragments and shot from wild meat before cooking, are common sense precautions anyone can employ.


Copyright 2008, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.
This may be reproduced. It may not be reproduced for commercial purposes.

Even though the studies should reduce general public concern about the use of lead ammunition there is always someone who will try to spin the results to further their political agenda. The biggest problem is that these same people will find a member of congress that is sympathetic to their cause and will introduce some form of legislation. There are two things that I have learned about politics. 1) It is far easier to kill proposed legislation than to get it passed. 2) the most effective form of communication with your elected official in Washington is a hand written note briefly stating your position on the issue, faxed to their Washington office.

NRA-ILA is pretty effective at communicating the issues but watching media sources should also be a line of defense. React to each and every objectionable issue that is introduced. Don’t rely on someone else to do it. In Washington it is a numbers game, how many support vs. how many oppose. If a bill effects our way of life then your congressman needs to know how you feel about it.

 

[paulvallandigham]

This is the classic example. If a news station( radio, TV, or Internet) is spreading anti-gun propaganda, get information from the NRA-ILA- at least alert them that there is a problem, and where-- and then go to see the station manager. If he's an idiot, or behind the campaign, ask for a meeting with the CEO of the corporation that owns the station. File complaints with the FEC, or other appropriate regulatory agencies, concerning factually inaccurate reporting being presented as " news". The Bodies will insist that the Corporation respond in writing to your complaints when their license is up for renewal. Send copies to your State Senators, and your Congressional Representative. Seek a meeting with them in their home offices when they are next available. Take a crowd of people with you to let them know how angry people are about this kind of thing. Invite the politicians to speak at your gun club- and be prepared to ask them hard questions about these kinds of things. They may not want to answer the questions, but they will know that a new " hot button " issue is growing in their district, or state. Let other gun groups in your state, and the NRA know what you are doing to go after these media types that abuse our brains with their lies.Picket the station where the offense information was broadcast, and notify the other Radio and TV stations of your date and time of your protest. Name the newscaster responsible. Name the Manager, Name the CEO. It may not be " news " to the offending station, but I bet its competition will like being able to cover your protest! :grin:

My local gun group, GunsSaveLife.com, has rallied gun owners to Counter-demonstrate every time the anti-gunners plan some kind of anti-gun protest. We usually are able to turn out 10 times as many counter-demonstrators, as they turn out protestors. In our monthly newsletter, we have a " Hall of Shame" column in which we expose( with pictures) any store in our area that posts a " No Guns Allowed " sign in their doors. We even have plasticized wallet cards that our members give to those store managers that says, " No Guns, No MONEY!"


Its been amazing how quickly those signs have come down after these stores have been exposed in our newsmagazine.

So, don't sit back and Do NOTHING! If you don't have any idea of what you can do, send me a PM, and I can come up with half a dozen approaches you can take. UNDERSTAND THIS: Our enemies don't like to be the subject of public exposure, and political picketing. It embarrasses them, and they don't want to have to give real " Facts" for what to them is an emotional, and political argument. Any " science"( read that as junk science) they throw into their arguments is just a smokescreen.Part of their motiveation is to so inundate the public, who does not own guns, with junk science, so that the public stops listening to all SCIENCE, and ignors the truth, even when we document it, to decide these issues merely on emotion. We saw that with this recent election of "Mr. Hope and Change". The vast majority of his supporters didn't care about any real Truth About him, or his positions: They liked him, and that is why they voted for him. Nothing else mattered. YOu would think they were voting for Prom King, rather than the Presidency of the United States!

And you wonder why voting was restricted to men only, and then only to men who owned property, at the time our Constitution was written( 1787), and the Declaration of Independence(1776) was signed? Polls today show that if either document was put up to a popular vote in America, that a majority of Americans would vote against them both.

 

[asabai]

I doubt there is a problem from eating deer killed with lead bullets if you process your own deer. I could see a possible problem from ground venison from commercial processors with poor quality control.

I have seen several deer carcasses being fed on by Bald Eagles. I don't think anyone can seriously argue that Bald Eagles are threatened overall by lead. That doesn't mean they might not try to make that argument. There are way too many bad hunters out there that can't hit the broad side of barn and wound animals unnecessarily. They give us all a bad name. We need to encourage good practices among our own. The hunters on this forum are naturally different, being bound by one lead projectile.

Lead is toxic, gasoline is poisonous, flammable and explosive. That doesn't mean we can't use both responsibly.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I am not calling you a liar, but are you sure you were seeing Bald Eagles and not Turkey Vultures feeding on those dead deer? Many people misidentify the turkey vulture as an Eagle, because of the huge wingspans, and the lack of feathers around the head and neck, where the Bald Eagle actually does have white feathers. The differences between the two birds in flight are: that the wing tips of the eagle are tapered to a point, where the wings of the vulture are broad square ends; and the vulture nas NO neck extending beyond its wings, while the Eagle does. Unless you are able to get within 50 yards of the birds, it can be sometimes a problem identifying them properly.

Here, for instance, we only rarely see Bald Eagles, and often immature males at that, whose white feathers are not fully developed. But, we see turkey vultures flying overhead all the time. We often don't identify that rare Bald Eagle, mistaking it for a Turkey Vulture, unless we are able to get very close. I saw my first Bald Eagles near Eagle River, Wisconsin, when I was a boy.

This site does say that Bald Eagles will take advantage of carion when its available, so you may just be right in what you saw. They are primarily fish eaters, but will kill ducks, and other birds for food as well.
http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle3.html

 

[brubincam]

-----a couple years ago I saw 2 bald eagles sitting on a dead deer in a cut alfalfa field-----YES THEY WERE BALD EAGLES--WHITE heads and all-----

 

[Rollover Jack]

I am submitting the following link to a worthwhile organization:

nssf

They deal with inaccuracy in media with relation to hunting and shooting. Also on the right towards the bottom,they have a writing guide concerning firearms and ammo.

"Less powder, more lead.
Shoots further, kills dead."

 

I am submitting the following link to a worthwhile organization:

nssf

They deal with inaccuracy in media with relation to hunting and shooting. Also on the right towards the bottom,they have a writing guide concerning firearms and ammo.

"Less powder, more lead.
Shoots further, kills dead."

There is some good stuff on here.

Sean

 

See this information from the Minnesota DNR. It sort of confirms what I was thinking about for muzzleloaders although it uses an inline with a copper jacketed bullet and a lead foster-type shotgun slug. The distance that lead fragments are traveling from the centerfire rounds is pretty impressive. It might make you think carefully about taking a 'Texas heart shot' with a centerfire rifle or even front shoulder shots for that matter. The first link is a powerpoint presentation with sound that will cue up automatically. The written reports are available via the other link.

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/fish_wildlife/lead/index.htm

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/lead/index.html

Sean

 

[paulvallandigham]

Sean: Have you ever processed a deer for eating? Its pretty easy to find and remove any remnants of lead the cuts through tissues away from the Primary Wound Channel. There are cuts left in the meat to follow, and the bits of lead- however small- are easily felt with your fingers as you are washing off and cleaning the blood, hair, and sinew from the meat. YOu can easily feel the difference between flesh and anything metallic- it just doesn't belong! :shocked2:

Even the so-called " microscopic " bits feel like fine sand, in your fingers. You may not be able to see them in the meat with your eyes, but you can " see " them with your fingertips.

I also flush the meat with water, and soak the large muscles in water and either salt or vinegar, to pull blood out of the meat. In the process, I have had bit- very small grit-- of lead fall out of the meat with the blood. You can feel it on the bottom of the stainless steel basin of my double sink in my kitchen when you reach in to find and pull the plug to drain the bloody water out.

I know some rural folks who don't take the time and care I do in processing meat, and have the constitutions of a horse to show for it! :blah: They eat everything, and don't mind a bit of gritty stuff.

 

[asabai]

I'm 100% sure they were bald eagles white heads and all. One was sitting on a road kill. My car missed it by 10 ft.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Actually, Sean, I AM not only an experienced Scientist, but I am a PUBLISHED SCIENTIST, TOO! July -August, 1991 issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences, pp. 1134-1151, Giles and Vallandigham, "Height Estimation from Foot and Shoeprint Length."

You can check this out at a good law library, and at some University libraries with Anthropology librares, if you are interested. The Journal is the official publication of the National Academy of Forensic Sciences, a peer review publication. The article is now footnoted in a couple of legal textbooks, and has been mentioned in another few articles by Anthropologists. Reprints have been requested of the authors from Europe, Asia, Africa, Central and S. America. In the 17 plus years since its publication, there has been no negative comments about the research, or our findings, by anyone.

I think you owe me an apology. :hmm: :hatsoff:

 

[gmww]

To know one in particular. As someone link to already, I'll do it again.

Article on CDC study of lead shot deer and lead levels in humans.

Facts Hunters Should Know from the CDC Study . . .

1. Consuming game harvested using traditional hunting ammunition does not pose a human health risk.

2. Participants in the study had readings lower than the national average and well below the level the CDC considers to be of concern.

3. Children in the study had readings that were less than half the national average and far below the level the CDC considers to be of concern.

4. The study showed a statistically insignificant difference between participants who ate game harvested using traditional hunting ammunition and the non-hunters in the control group.

5. Hunters should continue to donate venison to food pantries.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Thanks for the reference.

I have to wonder how may hunters, reading anything about Lead contamination from hunting, have run out to find non-toxic, but very EXPENSIVE ammunition, without even questioning the source of this information, or the motivations behind it.

"Evil will prevail, when good men sit by and do nothing."

I used to think that everyone understands that the First Big Lie you will ever hear in your life is,

" I am from your Government, and I am here to help you!".

Apparently, this message is not getting out to everyone. Of course its an exaggeration, but our government has been taken over by a lot of folks who think it exists so they can use it to gain Power over the rest of us.

We have to FIGHT every day to keep the Conservatives out of our Bedrooms, public schools, courthouses, and churchs, and we have to FIGHT every day to keep the Liberals out of the rest of our homes, and businesses!

A pox on both their houses!

This whole Lead poisoning scare is nothing but Anti-gun Politics gone haywire, again. I would love to be able to embarrass Arnold Governator by doing follow up studies on those California studies that were used to close hunting where Condors range.

I can't believe they are more suspectible to lead poisoning than other birds that eat carion. And, considering that more dead birds are road kills, and may actually ingest lead from the gasoline byproducts along the roadways, I have to wonder if the lead they may find in the bodies of Condors may not come from sources other than hunters. Its very hard to believe that condors digestive tracks differ from those of other birds, or that they somehow keep lead pellets in their crops longer than do other birds. If anything, considering the size of the birds, they should be passing any lead pellets or bullets faster through their digestive tracks.

I would also want to study the "Scat " of condors extensively to find such evidence of lead pellets and examine their condition, and numbers, and frequency of appearance. There are wounded birds and game animals that escape to die on the wilds. But there are also lots of birds, bugs, and critters who feed on these carion. Nothing is wasted. Even worms have to eat. I find it difficult to believe that Only Condors are eating carion in their home ranges. :hmm: